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Tribulations of the Shortcut Man

A Novel

About The Book

From a writer described as “a worthy successor to Raymond Chandler” (Michael Connelly), the follow-up to Shortcut Man, featuring Dick Henry in a rousing tale of sin and salvation in the City of Angels.

Dick Henry is the Shortcut Man, assisting people with their sticky situations in the belief that the shortest answer to many problems may not always be legal. In Tribulations of the Shortcut Man, he reluctantly provides assistance to an old girlfriend, pole dancer Pussy Grace.

After Pussy’s boyfriend, rich and famous developer and septuagenarian Art Lewis, has inexplicably cut off communication with her, Dick and Puss enter Lewis’s mansion disguised as gas company employees to investigate. Everything quickly goes downhill. Dick and Puss flee, leaving the very dead Art Lewis behind. Dick anticipates arrest until news breaks the next morning: Art Lewis has just gotten married and is now enjoying his honeymoon. Realizing a conspiracy is afoot, Dick must navigate his way through the underbelly of Los Angeles and a motley crew of miscreants in pursuit of justice.

“Filled with enough dark humor and shady characters to satisfy the most rabid noir fan” (Associated Press), p.g. sturges’s Shortcut Man series is hard-boiled crime at its best.

About The Author

Photograph by Paul Lim

p.g. sturges was born in 1953 in Hollywood, California. Punctuated by fitful interludes of school, he has subsequently occupied himself as a submarine sailor, a dimensional metrologist, a Christmas tree farmer, an optical metrologist, a musician, a songwriter, an author, a playwright, and a screenwriter.  

Product Details

  • Publisher: Scribner (February 5, 2013)
  • Length: 256 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781439194225

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Raves and Reviews

"A rollicking new LA crime novel. . . . A well-paced and suspenseful damn good read, full of deft observations, honest sentiment, and screwball touches that would make his father proud."

– Los Angeles Review of Books

"Shortcut Man is a glorious read: powerful, clever, suspenseful and filled with enough dark humor and shady characters to satisfy the most rabid noir fan, and convert those who aren't already."

– Associated Press

"This is an assured and diverting performance, with an ending that should impress even the most seasoned fan of hardboiled detective stories. You thought every twist ending in the noir bag had been taken out and used up, p.g. sturges seems to be saying as the book rushes toward its final page. Well, get a load of this."

– Washington Post

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